In amNew York today, Heather Haddon tackles the problem with the public address system along the G train. While she gets the story right — the lack of public address system is a big problem — there are some deep-seated issues at play here that did not get any press.
Basically, the story is simple: Many of the G train stops do not have a public address system. Thus, passengers do not know when the train is coming and cannot be told of unscheduled delays and problems further up the line. Haddon notes that a signal problem earlier this week laid passengers up at Hoyt-Schermerhorn for nearly an hour with no word of a delay.
Her first point is that the station agent elimination, planned a slow phase-out, will cause problems. “NYC Transit is eliminating hundreds of station agents across the system through attrition, so G riders craving information may need to develop ESP,” she writes.
That is obscuring the real story. Earlier this week, when the G train was laid up at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, the station agents will still in place. Yet riders still had no idea what was going on because NYC Transit lacks a comprehensive internal communications system.
Station agents at Hoyt-Schermerhorn don’t know what’s happening down the line at, say, Classon or Flushing Aves. With or without station agents, waiting for a delayed train is still just one big guessing game. Meanwhile, every station will still have at least one agent. Technically, those workers, if they knew of the problem, could still provide updates.
Haddon explores the real issue a few paragraphs later:
A 2005 report by the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee found that nearly a third of the 468 stations lacked PA systems. Transit installed speakers connecting to some token booths since, but the G seems to have gotten the short end of the stick.
At the Court Square stop in Queens, for example, an address system feeds to the E line but not the neighboring G. The next G stop, 21 Street, also lacks a PA. “It’s a big gap,” said Ellyn Shannon of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee. “There’s no means of communication.”
The MTA planned to replace all of the PA systems by 2009. Instead, it prioritized the installation of the digital boards on subway platforms. The boards are up and running on the L line, but rampant problems with the contractor has slowed the expansion to a crawl. The boards won’t go live in 156 stations until 2011, five years after the deadline, according to the most recent report by an independent engineer mandated to study MTA projects.
Because funds are tight, the MTA was not able to pursue the true solution: a unified public address system and digital notification boards. Now, with some station agents on the way out, the system will be understaffed and lacking enough technology to support the reduction. And that, my friends, is why we need proper levels of investment into transit infrastructure.
6 comments
What was that? I didn’t here your anouncement. LOL
What happened to the MTA giving out blackberries to station agents (for those who have not yet been fired)?
Look on the bright side. The subway is basically a time capsule from 1910-1950 anyway, since it has changed so little. Wouldn’t want to screw that up with new technology. People will forget their heritage. 🙂 Once upon a time, people had to use phones to call each other with calling trees, and had to yell down the platform to tell people when there was a problem. It could work…just saying… Since it seems there’s no hope of technological advances being added, might as well go with the cheap solutions. So, do agent booths have phones?
What a bad article. She uses Hoyt Schermerhorn to make a point about the lack of speakers in the system when, in fact, Hoyt Schermerhorn has speakers that work and are usually quite audible. The problem here isn’t the speakers, it’s whether anyone at the MTA bothered to make an announcement. I used to live in Clinton Hill and waited for the G at HS frequently. All sorts of stupid announcements would be made about standing back from the platform edge, or telling you that an A or C train was one station away, but never was there an announcement about why I and my fellow hundreds of passengers had been waiting over half an hour for a G.
The MTA’s technological backwardness is frightening. How about using the telephone lines that go to all those pay phones to bring status updates to passengers on the platforms?
And when has a station agent ever known anything about anything? And how do they help getting information to the passengers on the platform when they’re not supposed to leave their booths? Fire them all an use the money that went to their salaries for universal cell phone coverage underground so people can get updates directly to their phones – and call 911 if they’re in trouble.
On my cell phone bill, I get a surcharge titled “MTA Telecom Surcharge”…is that related to cell phone service?
Ben, are you implying the subway’s PA is useful? Or for that matter distinguishable from background noise?